In each country, a locally recruited extension specialist
(Table 1) was hired to produce and forward the necessary information and
available extension materials to the WorldFish Center office in Cameroon where a
local consultant, Dr V. Pouomogne of the Institute of Agricultural Research for
Development (IRAD), reviewed their findings and prepared this synthesis.
Information of history, structure, approach and performance of the aquaculture
extension services in each country were tabulated in Tables 3 to 5. Summaries of
the reports are presented in Annexes 1 to 5.

2.1 History of aquaculture
development

Small-scale fish farming in sub-Saharan Africa is a rather
recent activity. Apart from Madagascar where traditional water management for
aquaculture began in the 18th century under the reign of King
Andrianampoinimerina, the effective start of aquaculture in most of sub-Saharan
Africa was in the 1950s under the impetus of the various colonial
administrations. Most of these were aimed at colonial landowners for the
production of sport or food fish to supplement the diets of plantation workers.
Some efforts were being made to popularize fish farming in the years just prior
to independence.

After independence, these new aquaculture initiatives suffered
a long period of decline, of one to several decades, depending upon the country.
In general, newly independent governments did not give aquaculture a very high
priority. Virtually all new activities in the sector were initiated by foreign
donors and depended upon international financing. Many of these were
generalized, regional initiatives, based on theoretical approaches and designed
with little or no input from national governments. For example, the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) established a number of
experiment stations and model farms in the early 1970s, the United States Peace
Corps put aquaculture volunteers in many countries, while the World Bank
Training and Visit (T&V) extension approach (including aquaculture) was
being widely implemented.

Despite the recognized failure of the majority of these
foreign-led development projects to produce sustainable development of the
aquaculture sector, many lessons have been learned. In some cases, most notably
Cameroon, Madagascar and Zambia, new strategies based on the concepts of
community management, participatory research and development, farmer field
schools, etc. have evolved. A summary of the major steps leading up to this
transformation is shown in Tables 3 and 4.

For nearly all the states, aquaculture remains today a minor
priority amidst what are perceived as more burning issues such as public health
and education. None of the countries reviewed currently has a formal, long-term
plan for the development of the sector.

However, Africans rely heavily on fish as an important source
of animal protein. Until recently, the abundant capture fisheries have managed
to keep pace with growth in demand. Only in the last decade has population
growth and decline of capture fisheries created the situation where demand now
significantly outstrips supply, creating the market conditions crucial for the
development of aquaculture. In light of this, many countries are now in the
process of laying out strategic development plans for aquaculture.

2.2 Current structure and
approach

The current institutional structure for aquaculture extension
is very much top-down with often long chains of bureaucracy linking policy
makers, research and technology users (Table 5). This arrangement results in the
loss of much important technical information going from research to farmers, as
well as misinterpretation of the needs and constraints of farmers on the part of
policy-makers. On the other hand, some progress has been made in terms of
clearer job descriptions for the various levels within the bureaucracy and more
transparent and efficient administration of resources.

In addition to being heavily bureaucratized, the orientation
of extension is still driven by development goals derived with minimal user
consultation. Most countries still use a variation of the World Bank Training
and Visit (T&V) approach wherein researchers attempting to meet national
fish production targets develop technology that seeks primarily to maximize fish
production as opposed to meeting the personal development goals of farmers.
Research releases its findings in the form of written documentation that is not
directly accessible by either extension agents or farmers. The information
transmission system is consequently poor both in delivering knowledge of key
constraints and development objectives to policy makers, and the delivery of
technical information about production systems and markets to farmers. Overall,
the achievements of the T&V model in Africa have been negligible in terms of
both fish production and numbers of farmers.

A key problem appears to be the low level of support to field
technicians, those front-line staff in direct contact with farmers. Extension is
regarded as an entry-level position and a testing ground for new recruits.
Typically, young people come from two-year technical training schools and are
put into the field. Agents who perform well are rapidly moved, first to research
and eventually into administration. This leaves only newer recruits and those
who performed too poorly to be promoted in what might arguably be the most
difficult development task of all.

High quality human resources in the field are especially
critical to the proper functioning of the T&V system, and this probably
accounts for its very low success rate. For an approach such as the T&V
system, which is based on adapting technological packages designed by research,
field technicians require high levels of training in order to flexibly
manipulate general principles to fit specific on-farm situations. Unfortunately,
the time and resources needed to ensure the quality of field staff are lacking
in most of the countries reviewed.

2.3 Lessons from success

The development status of the countries reviewed is similar.
In addition to the lack of political stability and infrastructure that plagues
all sectors, the most important constraints to aquaculture growth were
identified in the national reviews as:

Inadequate inputs
(lack or high cost of feeds)

Shortage of
fingerlings

Weak research and
extension

Poor market
development

Figure 1. Steady increases in
production over a 15-year period of encouraging aquaculture development through
a range of participatory extension approaches.

As these problems are broadly similar to those in most of the
rest of sub-Saharan Africa, lessons learned by one in overcoming constraints
might be applicable to many others. While lessons about general approach might
be gleaned from failures, more specific guidance might be had from a review of
successes.

A notable exception to the general failure of aquaculture
development projects comes from Madagascar where a long-term commitment from
donors and large investments in fieldwork have paid off with substantial
increases in fish and sustained involvement of the private sector. The Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) were directly involved in Malagasy fish farming
from 1984 through 1991. The focus of a series of projects was the transfer of
responsibility for fingerling production and extension from government to the
private sector.

Training was concentrated on private hatchery owners, not only
in reproduction technology, but also in food fish production. This enabled the
hatchery operators to expand their markets and profits by encouraging and
assisting their neighbours to go into fish farming. Aquaculture is now growing
and, meanwhile, the government has gone largely out of the fingerling business.
Instead, they are concentrating on the much smaller and more manageable tasks of
transferring new knowledge to a limited number of better-educated hatchery
owners.

In some other countries, most notably Cameroon, Côte
dIvoire and Zambia, various agencies have been successfully experimenting
with other new approaches to aquaculture extension (Figure 1). In Côte
dIvoire, these efforts are being led by NGOs, while in Cameroon and
Zambia, international donors are working in conjunction with local government.
In both institutional arrangements, the primary objective is to create systems
that will more effectively move information from farmers to policy-makers and
from researchers to farmers.

What these new approaches have in common is the direct
involvement of farmers in the process of priority setting and choice of
technology. In Côte dIvoire and Zambia, a range of participatory
techniques are being used to stimulate local communities towards independent
thinking and action with aquaculture as one of several technological options
available for use by farmers who wish to diversify their agricultural
enterprizes. These efforts are led by general agriculture practitioners and
experts in extension and/or participatory methods.

In Cameroon the main theme is research-led development. senior
scientists from the Institute for Agricultural Research for Development are
leading small teams of two to three extension agents in participatory on-farm
research projects. Farmers and researchers work together to identify key
constraints and design experiments that will adapt current aquaculture
technology (contributed by research) to the reality of the farming system
(contributed by farmers). Extension agents gain significant and important
training in both technology and participation, researchers gain an appreciation
of the real constraints facing farmers, and farmers gain access to the best
available knowledge on fish culture.

One lesson from all of these approaches is that quality
extension does not simply mean that technicians have adequate technical
training (although even this is generally lacking). Also important are the
skills necessary to overcome cultural barriers and communicate effectively with
farmers who have important knowledge and social standing, even if they are
uneducated and illiterate. Part of this is mastery of the technology, but
participatory research approaches might also permit technicians with less
technical capacity to engage in joint learning exercizes that advance the
knowledge of both purveyors and anticipated recipients of technology at the same
time. The key lesson here seems to be that participation is more than the
process of designing policies and projects. It is of crucial importance that the
capacity of field workers to be participatory is strengthened.

Foreign donors have always played a key role in initiating
aquaculture development and remain essential if research and extension are to
focus on the rural poor. However, the crucial role of the private sector,
particularly in commercial fingerling production, cannot be underestimated.
Government hatcheries have uniformly failed to meet demand for high quality
seed. As the success of carp culture in Madagascar demonstrates, government and
the private commercial sector can cooperate to mutual advantage.